Brett:

We are excited about our next guest. He has over 25 years of experience in management, corporate finance, private equity, business development, securitization, and Merchant banking. He led public and private nonprofit boards through transitions, and he has expertise in diverse industry sectors including technology, financial services, general industry, telecommunications, and others. We're gonna be talking about all things exp not been able to put in a box. It's been more than a pleasure and an opportunity that I joined exp about a year and a half ago, and so it's exciting to have someone who's on the board of eXp to share a part of his story and part of his vision and a part of where exp world holdings are going please welcome to the show with me, Randall Miles. Randall, how are you doing?

Randall:

Good Brett. How about you? Thanks for having me.

Brett:

I'm doing well. Thank you so much excited to have you on the show, and you're I think calling from the great state of New York and the Hamptons area taking a chance to maybe get away from the city a little bit. How are things in New York state these days? What are you seeing now since post-COVID-19? Things get a little more back to normal?

Randall:

New York is great, always great. Things are returning to a more normalized state in the city, which is terrific. Opening up to international tourism. Again, I believe on November 1. Unfortunately, along with things reopening it means more traffic. That's the downside of it. But things are going well, and I think that's true of a lot of New York, certainly in the city, and you know, it's been pretty open out in eastern Long Island. It's been kind of nice to split our time between both.

Brett:

Excellent for our listeners to get to know you for the first time, would you give us a little bit about your story and your current focus?

Randall:

Well, my story, I am Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of SCM Capital Group, which is a global, strategic, and transaction advisory firm, I sit on several boards. The particular focus in this conversation is eXp world holdings of which I am Vice-Chairman and Chairman of the Audit Committee. I serve on public and private equity backboards, usually as chairman or vice-chairman. Pardon me and I spent a great many years on Wall Street, running large investment banking operations, or mergers and acquisitions, bulge bracket and middle-market firms, and have been CEO of a few multibillion-dollar global companies and financial services or technology, all of which kind of comes together and gives me an opportunity to share some of that background that experience with the companies I currently represent.

Brett:

My wife and I watched the show billions and I know when we met in New York, we were was alive for an exp commercial event about a month ago, there in Times Square, and so the president Jim Wong mentioned how he loved the show billions, and how you're part of that, would you tell our listeners, I think this is such a cool, interesting fact. A little die a little bit more into that part of your background, and then where and how you helped the show billions now?

Randall:

It's kind of a funny story and something of a happy accident. I had never been an actor or aspired to be, and several years ago, kind of recasting myself and how I was spending my time we had a conversation around the dinner table and I had suggested to my family that well, maybe I'll go into politics or try acting all of which was off the cuff and my middle son laughed so hard he almost fell out of his chair and made me $100 bet that I couldn't act. I called in a couple of favors, got a line on a show, and thought that would be the end of it, and I got a few calls and did a few commercials and some print work, and along the way, it led to an introduction to the production team at billions, and because of my background on Wall Street, I've had an opportunity to serve as a consultant to the show, technical consultant, and that has translated from time to time to some on camera performances as well. So, great cast, great production team, the great fun of all the productions I've worked on, I think it's the one I have the most fun with.

Brett:

Thanks for sharing that. Let's dive into the show now, and I believe we've all been given certain gifts, Randall, and these gifts have been given to us to be a blessing and help to others. Some people call them strengths, some people call them superpowers. But I'm curious, what are those one or two gifts that you believe you were given? It hasn't helped, how you help and bless people today, and I really want you to go back maybe to your earlier age. Earlier time high school or university days, at young sides, were there certain things that have stuck with you, and now obviously, looking back with everything you've accomplished, what really sticks out? What are those one or two gifts? That you believe you were given?

Randall:

That's a big question. I think I particularly like where I am today, in terms of certainly from a personal standpoint, but particularly from a professional standpoint, having accumulated a lot of diverse experience that allows me to share those experiences with the companies I represent, either on their board or clients, and I learned a long time ago, the benefits of listening, you can't listen when your mouth is moving, and understanding what motivates people, what motivates clients, why people enter into transactions, what are they trying to accomplish, and really trying to listen and understand before formulating a response and a strategy, I think has been really helpful. The other thing is kind of being open to the world, when I'm counseling, either at a college or speaking and people talk about things like luck, and you believe in luck, you don't believe that?

My own belief is that opportunity is presented to all of us many times over the course of a lifetime to some more than others. But it starts with having some understanding directionally of where you'd like to add, not necessarily the job you want. But the things that are meaningful to you in terms of what you're passionate about, and how your skills, dovetail with that, and to the extent that that's the case when the opportunity is presented to you even fleetingly. You're prepared for it. Now, not everybody is in a time and a place where they can take advantage of opportunity and life circumstances sometimes get in the way. But for those who are open to the world around them, and have some sense of the direction they want to go. It helps you recognize those opportunities and better evaluate whether now is the right time to do it. The other thing I would share with you and I think this is really true. I think I probably took this from the first boss I ever had, who is trying to do the right thing, the right way for the right reason, and to the extent that you follow that kind of a mantra that keeps you out of trouble. But I think it allows you to do good things, do them the right way and accomplish whatever strategic and financial goals you want to set for yourself or the company.

Brett:

That wasn't an experience, the benefits of listening, understanding what motivates people before offering the strategic, advice or, or steps forward, and then also having an understanding of the, I guess even the world around you and where you're trying to go you're trying to accomplish, and then and then wrapping it all up at some integrity doing the right thing in the right way, and for the right reasons. Is that a fair summary?

Randall:

Fair enough.

Brett:

Let's dive right into the secret to the show now, and I guess the number one secret that comes to mind of not putting exp in a box. With maybe your story, your journey to eXp and where you've seen it evolve and where you see it going. But would you just chat a little bit about what I guess attracted me to eXp and how and how it's evolving and how you know, it's really I mean, difficult to put it in a box?

Randall:

Sure, Brett, my history with eXp goes back to prior to its founding, when I first met Glenn Sanford, who is the founder and visionary behind exp, and there was a guy that was working for me who bought a home and was represented by an agent that was working with Glenn who had suggested that you know, this guy has an interesting story. Perhaps you ought to sit down and meet with them, and Glenn outlined over the course of a couple of hours, his vision and what he wanted eXp to be I'm not even sure it was named at the time, and I probably spent at least half that time trying to convince him, that's a pretty steep climb, you're really sure you want to tackle that, and we kept in touch over the years a couple of times a year as the idea came to fruition and as he developed the company, and I joined the board, I want to say about five and a half years ago, or so.

I mentioned earlier and vice chairman and chairman of the audit committee, and it has been an extraordinarily remarkable run, not just because the company has performed well, financially, I mean, that's great. We've attracted lots of agents today, we're somewhere shy of 70,000 agents, for example. Our trajectory suggests that we'll be somewhere between three and a half and $4 billion in revenue in 2021. This really has been remarkable in the context of an opportunity to transform the way real estate gets transacted not just in the US, but across the globe, and so far as we're now in, in 18 countries, and soon to announce operations in some additional countries. There are a few times over one's lifetime or over one's career, where you have an opportunity to be part of something truly transformational, and to have a meaningful impact on how that's accomplished, and it's really been the last four to five years that this company has really launched, like a rocket ship, where our business model has as resonated, people who've come to understand it.

Despite all of the naysayers early on, have now come to understand that everything that they believed falsely about exp, which just wasn't true, that this is a sustainable business model that agents have a remarkable opportunity to, to generate wealth, through, traditional commission revenues, through through through revenue share through stock ownership, and I think, perhaps the most the thing that stands out above the rest, and it is the goal of every CEO, whether you're running a public company, or a private company, or or or some mom and pop shop, and that is to get your employees to think like owners, and we're, we're blessed at eXp and that are almost 2000 employees, and our almost 70,000 agents, act like owners in the context of what the company means to them, the degree to which they're offering constructive advice to us, and the truth of it is because of the opportunities to acquire stock in the company, many most of our agents are in fact, owners shareholders.

Brett:

It's truly a transformational story, and I can attest to this. I was very skeptical to Randall I was approached, five years ago, and I was in commercial real estate and capital gains tax deferral, and so I said, now it's probably not for me, I didn't even look at it really, I just kind of list. I didn't even watch any videos, I just kind of listened to one person and just kind of dismissed it. But then I was approached by a good friend who said, give it a shot. Like I think this you'll see it if you experience it, and that was my experience. I said, look, I'm not going to recruit anybody, I'm just going to sell real estate, I'm going to sell the capital gains tax, Deferred Sales Trust. But within 3060 90 days, I could see the humility, the kindness, the competitiveness, the entrepreneurial spirit of the people that I was all have had the honor to now mastermind with getting coached. Coach with, do deals with it and it was let's just say infectious. I said, well, this is one of the things in the leadership part of it and then they bought Success Magazine.

Then, of course, eXp Commercial was launched, and then all of it just kept getting better and better and better in so many ways, and you're right. It's the focus, I feel with Glen and the board and the company, the focus on making it transformational at the brokerage level at the agent level, those are on the front line, and rewarding them with the ownership I always say get on the right side of the quadrant, the Robert Kiyosaki Cashflow Quadrant right become owner, business owner, and an investor and the rest of it start to really take care of itself as we're taking care of we're more likely in better prepared and better equipped to share our knowledge with one another and help more clients and we can't help but grow any thoughts on just the the the nature of that taking some time, and now being on the other side of it on the just the rapid success that we've had? What really sticks out of what Glenn was able to do is that you guys have made sure to keep that culture in place. Could you give us some insight into that wisdom of something that's growing so fast?

Randall:

Well, first and foremost, it starts with Glenn's extraordinary vision. His perseverance, his diligence, plowing through all of the challenges and all of the naysayers that told him it couldn't be done for so many, so many years, and it was really four or five years ago when the traction really started to take hold our culture, our philosophical underpinnings are rooted in the fact that this is an agent centric organization, our real estate agents are our customers. We want to provide them with the breadth and depth of resources and tools, everything available to help them build the best practice they can build, and you'd mentioned that we reward people with stock, I would change the language around that I don't think we reward people. For anything, I think they earn what they get. We don't give away stock for free. For example, we give an opportunity to earn those shares based on what it is they accomplish and real estate agents.

If they are nothing else they are certainly enthusiastic and entrepreneurial, each running their own business, and I think what is unmistakable about the eXp business model and something that Glen felt very early on was key to what was going to be the success of the organization is a degree of collaboration. Unlike that, that existed anyplace else in corporate America, we operate virtually for those who don't know what, we don't have any physical offices anywhere with 2000 employees, and almost 70,000 agents, we operate with a technology platform called for Bella which gives us an opportunity to operate in a virtual campus, which means that an agent in San Diego can collaborate with an agent in Portland, Maine, that someone in Las Vegas can get advice from someone in Beaufort, South Carolina, that all the training material that is available, we can make available 24/7 as opposed to having people fly around the country to present to smaller groups, and that provide that is really powerful in terms of providing instant access to information. It's also very powerful. When you think about people acting like owners, that agent in San Diego is receptive to the person in Portland, Maine with respect to you know, how do you do this? Or do you have a form that might be helpful in that regard? Because we all as shareholders benefit? That through that collaboration?